Hero Of All The Villains
by AReturnIndeed
Summary: Hyperion decided they're tired of waiting for someone to return their favourite escapee: Krieg- After being caught off guard somewhere near a Hyperion controlled area, a certain blue-haired siren and her tag-along psycho ended up in a battle. Needless to say: all hell broke loose. One-shot. (First time publishing a fic in a very, very, long time.)


Author's note: Inspired by some fan-art I saw, but now cannot find, where Maya's stood over Krieg defending him from Hyperion.

Some creative-liberties were taken- purely because I'm not wholly fond of the actual Release the Beast mutation Krieg actually undergoes in-game...

Mostly a mish-mash of some of his Raving Retribution dialogues.  
>Warning: minor head-canons inside revolving around why Maya doesn't react with Eridium and Krieg's mask.<p>

i_am_the_hero_of_all_the_villains

He stares at me occasionally, as if he wants to talk but we both know it usually ends with him screaming about something irrelevant.

Saved my life countless times now, and I've returned the favour nowhere nearly as much- simply because he's able to power through like it's nothing.

But now...

Now we face our toughest foe- his toughest foe- and now he's down for the count. Covered in blood and dirt, desperately trying to get to his feet; desperate to stop me from doing what I intend to do.

"I'm here to collect the test subject-"

Save Krieg's life...

Defend him to the death like he's always seemed willing to do for me.

"-Omega Class: extremely dangerous-"

Without thinking, I'd picked up his discarded gun, reloaded it and pulled out my own- holding them akimbo like Salvador would do in the heat of battle.

"-Step away from the experiment-"

He's probably staring at me now, the clockwork in his head racing to come up with some kind of shout, to stop me from doing something as mad as he would always do…

It doesn't come.

"-I repeat-"

Not until well after the final warning from the Hyperion warden and all hell broke loose.

"That is property of the Hyperion Corporation. Back away from the experiment!"

The warden dropped first- bullet hole in his head.

"No."

The barrel of the Maliwan smoked in my right hand.

All hell broke loose- bullets whizzed past my head- three more Hyperion goons fell.

Another.

The magazine in my right-hand pistol clicked empty and I tossed it, swapping it with the red Bandit assault rifle in my left.

Fifteen Hyperion idiots remained, and I knew I had more than enough bullets in the rust-bucket of a gun- the oversized box magazine meant for an insane capacity of bullets.

It wasn't the most accurate of weapons, nor the most powerful, but it did the job- seven down, eight remain.

Click- the gun jammed.

I looked at the gun, fumbling the bolt to eject the jammed box magazine. Yet more bullets flying past, and a couple grazing me- one in the arm and another on my leg- the lackeys were getting their aim in.

Krieg was fuming somewhere behind me, I could hear the furious growling growing louder and louder, but I couldn't bear to look as another bullet hit me.

My shield had failed when the gun had jammed and I was being whittled down- and even though I'd been exhausted by my powers in the fight that had lead to this one I let go of the gun with my left hand.

"This will end!"

The last eight were sucked into the iridescent purple wave of energy now in their midst. I'd phase locked them- but for how long?

I didn't have time to find out.

My fist clenched, the orb imploded, all but two were crippled beyond repair. They opened fire as soon as they were down- my shield barely entering its recharging cycle.

Pain tore through my chest and lower side. Down I went with a cry- crippled by the shock and pain of anti-personnel rounds.

Reinforcements arrived in the form of Loaders- screaming to the ground in fireballs and dirt flying into the air. Engineers racing in from the drop-ship that had arrived.

An agony ridden scream tore out.

"There is no me... There is no you..."

Crunching of bones and tearing of flesh. Loaders unfolding themselves, Engineers setting up turrets.

"I am the hero of all the villains-"

What sounded like a thick liquid dripping onto the floor in sheets.

"I know what I have become... I am the inside of this world..."

It was Krieg. He was up and moving as the Loaders came closer.

"You'll never take the jellied fantasies of my wasted youth..."

A blood-soaked blue, silver, white and brown smudge entered my vision where I lay on my side.

"This is my favourite song! The blood is in my eyes-"

His hand wraps around my empty one- takes the gun from the other. His voice shifts from a growl to a calm tone at the end of his sentence. Metallic smelling fingers brush hair from my eyes.

"You don't deserve this..."

I blink until I can see- he's got the gun unjammed and reloaded, losing blood fast. But still forcing himself onwards, standing tall and defiant.

"I deserve to burn, because-"

He glances down at me, mid word before looking back up again, dropping into his more feral pose by the end of his words. His calm words cracked into a roar with his final statement..

"I am a monster…!"

Barely ten seconds had passed since the Loaders had arrived- Krieg's soliloquy seeming to last forever and before he'd even finished his last word he'd unleashed hell upon the robots.

He'd mutated- all but the gravest wounds healed- not partially like he always had before, where his right side twice its original size while his left had atrophied. This full mutation was an exponential growth that I knew he'd have to refuel by gorging on meat.

Nearly eight foot tall, lean with his spine protruding ever so slightly, buzz-axe slung over his shoulder lazily, assault rifle in his left hand- both his favoured weapons looking a lot like tiny children's toys.

"Can you hear me?! My operatic diva of flesh and steel-"

His near roar dropped to a sane shout.

"We'll make them pay for what they did to us!"

He broke into a sprint.

Nothing seemed to stop him- not even bullets grazing his head or hitting him in the legs. The mutated, half-sane psycho tore through Loaders without rest, brutally tearing Hyperion personnel apart.

Well aimed throws and retrieves with his right hand, and closing the gap with bullets from his left until he ran dry, Krieg powered on- his rambles a cross between the calm voice I'd heard and his usual guttural roaring tone.

But despite his efforts I truly believed I'd bleed out before he'd be done. Anti-personnel rounds were designed to tear a person's insides apart after all...

I thought of all the times we'd ended up saving one another, where more often than not the encounter was awkward; he'd always rush to me, hells blazing across a firefight to reach me, jab me with a health serum, pick me up, hand me my gun and look into my eyes to make sure I was okay...

And I- I'd usually just pass him the health vial, unless he was that badly hurt then I'd let him use me as support to get up himself and go about defending us, with a well placed phase-lock and a generous dose of bullets, as before while he got himself sorted.

More often than not our battlefield heroics were a one sided affair- he'd go well out of his way to save me while I'd lazily return the favour.

It had taken me until we were confronted by a Hyperion battalion to realise that I actually cared for him in return.

"Monster down-"

I was snapped out of my reverie by a worming its way under my shoulders..

"-Angel up."

His mask was off, blood dripping from his nose as it flowed down his face, from a gash that had probably severed one or more of the leather straps that had held it in place.

The all too familiar hot-cold of a health serum entered my bloodstream- slowing the bleeding but certainly not saving my life.

His breath smelled tangy- not unlike metal, but it had an edge to it, almost sickly sweet. A scent I'd smelled before- Control Core Angel, the huge glowing purple injectors...

Eridium.

The realisation chilled me to the core.

The gas mask wasn't so he could breathe. It was so he didn't breathe the elemental fumes into the air and poison everyone around him.

He knew sirens reacted to the purple mineral- we'd all seen it when Lilith had absorbed it- when we killed Angel in our fruitless attempt to stop Handsome jack.

But I hadn't been sure until this very moment, breathing in the Eridium laced air, feeling my body kick into overdrive; rejecting the shrapnel and healing the internal damage.

What I hadn't seen however- was that he'd taken a bullet meant to kill me, one too many for his own body to handle. Not until he'd collapsed, making a record breaking throw of his axe to kill a Hyperion sniper in retaliation- a length that I'd say was about three-hundred feet- a shot even Zero might have had to take time to line up.

Fortunately, the bullet had been a through-and-through, the only one that had struck him to do so. He'd been healing all through his mutation, but he'd exhausted his energy entirely so I tried testing my Eridium boosted powers.

With a little effort I rolled him onto his side- not an easy feat with him being more than twice my size- and pressed my hands to both sides of the wound.

I closed my eyes and focussed, directing the powers into healing the damage- leaving a pink scar just below his sternum, its twin on his lower back on the right-hand side.

With a sigh that burned with sick sweetness and metal, I rolled Krieg onto his back- joining him on my own, with my eyes closed after scanning for danger. Fumbling my ECHO from my belt and clutching it to my chest after tapping a code into the control panel.

I'd sent an SOS to Sanctuary from my ECHO, just for good measure. Letting my thoughts drift I let a few words slip from my mouth.

"You fought well."

Who knew I only reacted to Eridium vapours... I'd certainly not reacted to the type of chunks Lilith used, or the refined bars...

The effects had left me buzzing, the energy weaker now that I'd spent it on a large-scale heal- but it tingled through my lungs and veins, leaving a mild burning when I exhaled.

I felt something twitch against my fingers and the psycho beside me rambled lazily.

"...as gorgeous as a thousand sunsets..."

A smile crept onto my face.

"You're no monster, Krieg."

We'd had a tough day of saving each other's lives- and we deserved the rest, a bloody and scorched battlefield with us as its epicentre.

Normally we'd be humiliated to call for a lift home, but this one time was our exception-

After all...

A bounty of eight-hundred and twenty billion credits, on both of our heads combined, was awfully tempting for our enemies to cash in on...

/i_am_the_hero_of_all_the_villains


End file.
